PepsiCo Frito-Lay Chip Production Facility, USA

PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay is a $12bn convenience foods business unit headquartered in Purchase, New York, US.

Frito-Lay's manufacturing facility in Casa Grande, Arizona, mainly produces potato, corn and tortilla chips. It turns about 500,000 potatoes into potato chips every day. The facility employs 300 people.

Products

The facility manufactures chips under the brands Lay’s and Ruffles potato chips, Fritos corn chips, Tostitos and Doritos tortilla chips, and Cheetos cheese-flavoured snacks.

Site

The 188,000ft2 facility was constructed on a 202-acre site. Located in the desert, the plant uses solar energy. The size and location of the plant became an added advantage in implementing energy efficient technology.

Design and construction

Frito-Lay aims to reduce the plant's water and electricity consumption by 90% and use of natural gas by 80%, cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions. The installation process will be completed by 2010.

The facility was awarded LEED Existing Building Gold Certification in December 2009. It is the first food manufacturing site in Arizona to receive the certification. The plant received the award from the US Green Building Council (USGBC) following the verification of the plant by the Green Building Certification Institute.

A number of green design and construction features have been implemented by the facility in order to integrate the LEED principles, including technologies and methods for water and energy reduction, and recycling.

Technology

The facility incorporates highly efficient technology for minimising energy consumption such as heat recovery systems, skylights and high-efficiency ovens. The heat recovery systems uses preheated cooking oil while the skylights substitute lighting systems. The energy consumption of the plant has reduced by 20% since 2006.

Water saving and landscaping technologies were used in order to reduce water use by the plant's production line by 17%. The plant also burns natural waste to produce additional heat and electricity.

To avoid sending its waste to landfill, the plant implemented a zero-landfill recycling programme. The programme also revived innovation credits from USGBC. By 2009 99% of the plant’s waste was diverted from landfill. Other initiatives included employee-led recycling schemes, the reuse of cardboard shipping boxes and the use of plant waste, such as potato peelings and corn husks, for livestock feed.